Hi i have a interview and was just wondering if i could get some real world feedback from someone who is or has been a qa tester. like how fun or stressfull or what kind of future is there in that feild of work?
anyone here a video game QA tester?
- Thread starter th3joker
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Well I do review modern games...
Anyway best I can tell it varies quite a bit from company to company, possibly even team to team and game to game. In all cases you will be the lowest rung on the ladder, however some will treat you like a cost and play accordingly, others will treat you like valuable team members but the balance likely goes to the former.
Some will be basically https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2010/01/26/why-testers/ but for games. People that might not necessarily be full bore coders but will know the jargon, know how to twist computer code to breaking, know what a good user experience is, and generally otherwise be playing at that sort of level.
Others will be essentially like beta tests we see released to the public and just made to play the games and see what goes.
Some will be given essentially finished code to play with.
Others will be given pre alpha code and told to repeatedly test a single mechanic all day and lose the will to live.
Some will be given free reign to try to do QA with.
Others will be given specific instructions of things to do or bugs to look for.
Some will be told to try to help the team "the jumping felt floaty" or "build 2 had the nicest feeling movement".
Others will be limited to outright bugs, typos, seeing if people can complete the game or similar.
You will probably not be given too much choice on what game gets done, and it will likely be a seniority thing if it is. Hope you like playing film tie in games. In any case it will not be a matter of being like you play games for fun all day, or making do if you are your grandparents' house and only have a very limited selection of lesser titles or ones you have already finished.
Oh and you will notice bugs in games. I don't know how much compared to a programmer, hacker or reviewer but you will notice them. You will notice them always and very fast, probably even when others can overlook them. This will happen fairly suddenly one day and last until either you die or get a serious head injury and forget everything you knew, though even then something might percolate up -- http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2000/10/even-amnesics-dream-tetris
Also don't be surprised if your fixes don't make it into the final product, especially nowadays when you can patch it after the fact and missing your launch window costs more than fixing bugs later (or so they think).
Future wise. Obviously game companies have a shelf life -- any that last more than 10 years are the exception, 20 is so rare that you probably know them all by name. That is fairly normal in the modern world though so the question then becomes can you take your show on the road. To that I would probably say yes but it will be a lifetime of bottom of the heap if you do and the best you could hope for is some kind of manager of a team of QA people if you somehow gain management training in there somewhere. You can probably transition out of games at some point into general product testing (especially if you got some of that in games -- the console makers do need people to test controllers after all) or general software a la that link I did back in the second paragraph.
Anyway best I can tell it varies quite a bit from company to company, possibly even team to team and game to game. In all cases you will be the lowest rung on the ladder, however some will treat you like a cost and play accordingly, others will treat you like valuable team members but the balance likely goes to the former.
Some will be basically https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2010/01/26/why-testers/ but for games. People that might not necessarily be full bore coders but will know the jargon, know how to twist computer code to breaking, know what a good user experience is, and generally otherwise be playing at that sort of level.
Others will be essentially like beta tests we see released to the public and just made to play the games and see what goes.
Some will be given essentially finished code to play with.
Others will be given pre alpha code and told to repeatedly test a single mechanic all day and lose the will to live.
Some will be given free reign to try to do QA with.
Others will be given specific instructions of things to do or bugs to look for.
Some will be told to try to help the team "the jumping felt floaty" or "build 2 had the nicest feeling movement".
Others will be limited to outright bugs, typos, seeing if people can complete the game or similar.
You will probably not be given too much choice on what game gets done, and it will likely be a seniority thing if it is. Hope you like playing film tie in games. In any case it will not be a matter of being like you play games for fun all day, or making do if you are your grandparents' house and only have a very limited selection of lesser titles or ones you have already finished.
Oh and you will notice bugs in games. I don't know how much compared to a programmer, hacker or reviewer but you will notice them. You will notice them always and very fast, probably even when others can overlook them. This will happen fairly suddenly one day and last until either you die or get a serious head injury and forget everything you knew, though even then something might percolate up -- http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2000/10/even-amnesics-dream-tetris
Also don't be surprised if your fixes don't make it into the final product, especially nowadays when you can patch it after the fact and missing your launch window costs more than fixing bugs later (or so they think).
Future wise. Obviously game companies have a shelf life -- any that last more than 10 years are the exception, 20 is so rare that you probably know them all by name. That is fairly normal in the modern world though so the question then becomes can you take your show on the road. To that I would probably say yes but it will be a lifetime of bottom of the heap if you do and the best you could hope for is some kind of manager of a team of QA people if you somehow gain management training in there somewhere. You can probably transition out of games at some point into general product testing (especially if you got some of that in games -- the console makers do need people to test controllers after all) or general software a la that link I did back in the second paragraph.
I did testing for codemasters aaaaages ago for a toca game/another racing game/Prince naseem boxing and (iirc) a David beckham based football game. It’s fun at first, but then very very repetitive, trying to break games is where the real boredom kicks in (like @FAST6191 mentioned, it’s monotonously going through a list of very specific things over and over).
It’s a great doorway into these companies if you get a break, could lead to something bigger.... unless they relocate.... or go bump.
It’s a great doorway into these companies if you get a break, could lead to something bigger.... unless they relocate.... or go bump.
Thank you @FAST6191 and @KiiWii for the expeirenced information. Im quite happy to say I got the job and its quite fun so far. I am under a NDA so i cant really say much now, but its quite fun using debug consoles in the way they were ment . It has already improved my tryping and writing skills. i enjoy it all so far. i feel like a investigative reporter and a bug hunter. I was at first kind of intimidated by the job but now that ive actually done it for some time and dont need much help i feel comfortable. at first i felt it dumb luck to find a unique bug thats yet to be reported and it kind of is but once you start trying the paths less traveled you start to find the goodies.
Last edited by th3joker,
good luck! I did game QA for 3 years, then game development for 2, then business software QA for3 years and on to network / MS exchange and MS SQL admin for 8 years after that.
the main thing with game QA is making note of what you did to promote the issue and then seeing how you can reproduce it every time - so it's easier to document and pass back to the programmers / artists.
after a while you'll start to know what sort of unexpected things you can try to do (reverse through walls, try to break through world geometry etc.) to ''break'' the game.
the main thing with game QA is making note of what you did to promote the issue and then seeing how you can reproduce it every time - so it's easier to document and pass back to the programmers / artists.
after a while you'll start to know what sort of unexpected things you can try to do (reverse through walls, try to break through world geometry etc.) to ''break'' the game.
That is good to hear
Congratulations!! Would you mind letting me know what the necessary qualifications/skills are? How did you come across this job. I really had something in mind for qa testing but I am not sure how to begin with or if it's even feasible.
That is good to hear
One day back in march while watching the local 12 noon news on tv, they did their routine segment of whos hiring now from the local goverment job agency. it said videogame tester with xxx company apply online. ( i dont really want to say what company due to my NDA just to be safe.)
as for required skills, well to be a video gamer, computer literate and have good comprehension, good english reading and writing skills. how to edit photo and video screen caps. ms paint and windows movie maker basic tools are all you need no photoshop or major video editing, mainly just shortening down a clip. the ability to search and edit a database. basicly google searching terms.
I applied with the idea id never even get a interview but i did spice it up with the comments about what ive actually done to break games like destiny 1. I think thats what made my app stand out.
Good to hear from you. Don't need to release any information about the company just wanted to know the rest, I thought they required a specific degree, like major in computer science?
white box testing requires coding skills vs blackbox testing which does not require coding skills
Congratulations on getting the job. You don’t need to, but if you did want to mention the company, that part isn’t generally included in the NDA. It’s really more what you’re doing and with what. Which is how you still get to see which companies people have moved to in their LinkedIn profiles. Just for instance.
I keep telling my wife she should do it. If I ever want a problem found with my code, I hand her the software to play with. Guaranteed she’ll find some obscure bug you’d never have thought of. She reckons it’s because she’s not technically minded, so just presses buttons and does things randomly
I keep telling my wife she should do it. If I ever want a problem found with my code, I hand her the software to play with. Guaranteed she’ll find some obscure bug you’d never have thought of. She reckons it’s because she’s not technically minded, so just presses buttons and does things randomly
I did occasionally wonder what happened with this. Nice that you made it fairly quickly into a theoretically potentially fun to play game (loved the first, got on well enough with the second, beyond... eh though have not played 3 yet) rather than being stuck testing kids edutainment
Though I will ask. Did you have any desire to play the final product?
Though I will ask. Did you have any desire to play the final product?
Honestly nope. I bought the game on release day played it for all but maybe 20 minutes and was over it. Since i already knew literally everything and even what was changed and cut there was no surprise . Like watching the same movie for the 100th time. When i did play the final build at home i still fell into the habbit of looking for bugs lol. Id say the funniest part of the whole experience was when they found out i was a huge console modder while playing my vita on break, as i played it off that i was just a casual noob gamer. Once the cat was out the bag they were kinda mad. I explained how ive already had access to the playstation sdk debugging tools. Explained how i was the guy who figured out the method to convert retail ps3s into dex in 2008.
It was a strange job. Glad i did it but will never work qa again.
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